Australian Bark

AUSTRALIAN SUMMER BARK


In their time at the shedding of the outer bark
the gum trees wax colourful and swell out with the
hue cry of a summer of drinking up all the spring
to bedeck themselves in flags & pennant ribbands
in flying streamers of curling, twisting tree leather
shed of upper limbs as used-up innocence goes cracking
to falling like floats strung in the summer parade
where the arches-n-bows of harvest bark make neckties
of the bole in its firm buttressess as it were a god
or a icon of one, a great upthrust spire to one.


- 31st December 2014

ScienceAlert

Why do Eucalypts shed their bark? It turns out the trees expand in the warmer month, but their bark can't stretch, so instead it peels off in long strips. This also helps to remove pests, and reveals the beautiful mottled patterns underneath.

Images and information via Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment